One inherent weakness in WinRAR is its inability to handle long file names and directory structures. Attempting to extract long names from a business RAR file will result in an error that states WinRAR cannot handle path and file names exceeding 260 characters. This total includes the entire destination path name and that of any files. As a simplified example, "C:\Users\JohnSmith\Documents\database.dat" counts as 41 characters, rather than just the file name's 12 characters. Unfortunately, there's no automated way to resolve long names, but there are a number of ways work around this limitation.

Change Extraction Location

Open your the RAR file in WinRAR. The easiest way to open the file in WinRar is by double-clicking the file in Windows Explorer. However, if WinRAR is not associated with RAR files, this will not work; instead, right-click the file, point to "Open With" and click "WinRAR Archiver."

Click the "Extract To" button.

Click the root folder of any drive, such as "(C:)," and click "OK." This extracts the contents to the root folder, which minimizes the path name without changing the contents of the RAR file. As an example, this changes the "C:\Users\JohnSmith\Documents\BusinessFiles\" extraction location to just "C:\," which saves 40 characters. If your file names were just over the limit, this allows you to extract the long file names.

Change File Names

Open the RAR file in WinRAR.

Right-click any file or folder name and select "Rename."

Type a shorter name and press "Enter." Choose to rename higher level folders before renaming subfolders and files. Doing so potentially renames multiple file paths simultaneously in a single action. As an example, renaming the uppermost folder to "X" would reduce the following three paths by 25 characters each: LongFileNameBusinessFolder\sub1\reports.docx LongFileNameBusinessFolder\sub2\data.xlsx LongFileNameBusinessFolder\sub3\readme.txt Changing just the first folder to "X," changes all three paths to: X\sub1\reports.docx X\sub2\data.xlsx X\sub3\readme.txt

Click "Extract To," choose the root directory of any drive and click "OK" to extract the files and folders.

Extract Only Files

Open the RAR file in WinRAR and click "Extract To."

Click the root folder of any drive to minimize the directory path.

Click "Rename Automatically" in the Overwrite Mode section.

Click the "Advanced" tab and click "Do Not Extract Paths."

Click "OK." This extracts just the files without extracting the folders. As an example, you could extract the following files, absent their inherent folders: LongFileNameBusinessFolder\sub1\reports.docx LongFileNameBusinessFolder\sub2\data.xlsx LongFileNameBusinessFolder\sub3\readme.txt This outputs the following files in the selected extraction location without placing them in any folders: reports.docx data.xlsx readme.txt If the files contain the same name, they will be automatically renamed. This technique only works if folders in the RAR archive adds an excessive path length.